Database Users

I Tried it all to get root..... Finally got root, but without R/W access

Ok.... I have googled them all and done a search on this website and have found nothing that is similar to my situation. I hate when people ask questions that are found in other forums and would not want to do the same... but I don't feel my situation is in the realm of that.
I followed all the basic ways of rooting and none worked for me. I did the Visionary (ver 14) root and root.zip (/root to sdcard), etc.... didn't work.
Finally Id/l Visionary for temp root.... and I followed http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=858996.
I got S=OFF, but had to 'sync' in terminal 5 or 6 times to be able to get su to work.
I finally get su to work (# instead of $ in terminal) and all the programs that require root to work do as they are supposed to. The main issue I have, is that without running visionary (with R/W access), I cannot delete files without it warning that I have read only access.
I thought if I had root access, I wouldn't need to set up Write access.
Once I run visionary, and delete *.apk files that came with my phone, they do stay away perm.
I just want to know if there is a way to keep the R/W access without visionary since I know I am in root.....

Root access is a separate entity from S-off, and that a separate entity from /system partition read/write mounting. That partition is read/only at boot. You can make it writable with adb, with Root Explorer, or with a linux mount command.
HTC Glacier running CM7 #33

root explorer has a button to push to mount r/w, or if you have adb setup you can plug in your phohne and type
adb remount
and you'll be r/w
or you can use terminal emulator and type
su
mount-o,remount -rw /dev/block/mmcblk0p25 /system
exit
and you'll be r/w

option94 said:
...
su
mount-o,remount -rw /dev/block/mmcblk0p25 /system
exit
and you'll be r/w
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I see two typos in the command. There should be a space between mount and -o, and no comma between the -o and remount. Thus:
Code:
# mount -o remount -rw /dev/block/mmcblk0p25 /system
Of course, "adb remount" from a nearby PC is so much easier.

Thanks. I just woke up when i started typing that.
and the , will work with no space. Both methods are fine.

Thanks guys!
On another note, do either one of you know if you can mount the phones system folder as a drive on Vista like you would be able to do with the SD Card?
Im not talking with adb shell... More like using Windows Explorer

Nope. Only the "external" SD card can be mounted via USB, sorry.

This might be what your looking for.
adb commander

option94 said:
This might be what your looking for.
adb commander
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is close enough. Thanks option!

[Q] Busybox

Does anyone know where to get the busybox binary that will work on the nexus 10? Also, how do you manually copy it to the system folder? I'm rooted and on the stock ROM. File explorer used to have an option to remount a partition in read write mode but am not seeing this option now. Anyone know the syntax to remount the system partition with write? I have root and can get shell on the file system.
TIA

cowabunga said:
Does anyone know where to get the busybox binary that will work on the nexus 10? Also, how do you manually copy it to the system folder? I'm rooted and on the stock ROM. File explorer used to have an option to remount a partition in read write mode but am not seeing this option now. Anyone know the syntax to remount the system partition with write? I have root and can get shell on the file system.
TIA
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
You can grab busybox off the market, things like esFile explorer , root explorer, has options to remount RW , or you could just install a custom manta kernel ..

Just rooted - unable to backup

Hi all,
Ive spent to weekend reading about rooting and ROMS/Kernels and decided to try it. I used a root kit found here from Mskip (great kit). Ive sucessfully rooted, and then sucessfully installed Smooth Rom 4.3 with the Motley kernel.
Ive downloaded Titanium Backup and Rom Manager. TB worked and I did a backup (which I now cant find) (i have ES File Explorer). I upgraded to Titanium Pro, and now when I open the app is states root was denied. I remember when I first opened TB SuperSu asked me to grant it access. After a reboot I opened SuperSu and stated a Binary update was necessary and performed it.
Now TB pro states root was denied, when I open SuperSu there is nothing there in the apps list, and I dont know how to manually grant TB root access.
Sorry if this is noobish, not sure what to do and I dont want to keep going without a backup.
Edit: When I try to backup in ROM Manager I hit backup, it brings up the notification to name the backup, I hit ok and nothing happens.

cam75 said:
After a reboot I opened SuperSu and stated a Binary update was necessary and performed it.
Now TB pro states root was denied, when I open SuperSu there is nothing there in the apps list, and I dont know how to manually grant TB root access.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That sort of sounds like the SuperSU "su" update might have failed. Can you get root with other apps? (e.g. go in to a terminal emulator and type "su")
Note there is a chicken-and-egg problem if (either) SuperSU/su or Superuser/su fail: they need root themselves to remount /system so that the "su" binary can be updated.
If no apps can get root, then you sort of have "lost root", and the fix is to manually insert the .apk and su binary into /system/app and /system/bin/su (or /system/xbin/su depending on flavor!) either with a flash package in recovery, or manually via the adb shell command line (with custom recovery running).
HTH
PS you should be able to just manually start the recovery and do a backup in the meantime, no? The fact that ROM manager isn't doing anything could either be a lack-of-root problem or something else (a busybox dependency?)

bftb0 said:
That sort of sounds like the SuperSU "su" update might have failed. Can you get root with other apps? (e.g. go in to a terminal emulator and type "su")
Note there is a chicken-and-egg problem if (either) SuperSU/su or Superuser/su fail: they need root themselves to remount /system so that the "su" binary can be updated.
If no apps can get root, then you sort of have "lost root", and the fix is to manually insert the .apk and su binary into /system/app and /system/bin/su (or /system/xbin/su depending on flavor!) either with a flash package in recovery, or manually via the adb shell command line (with custom recovery running).
HTH
PS you should be able to just manually start the recovery and do a backup in the meantime, no? The fact that ROM manager isn't doing anything could either be a lack-of-root problem or something else (a busybox dependency?)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thx for the quick response, however much of that is WAY over my head. I opened terminal emulator and typed su and this is what popped up. 1 [email protected]:/ $
When TB is opened it states error "sorry I could not acquire root privilegdes. this applidation will not work. please verify that your rom is rooted and try again. this attempt was made using the "/system/xbin/su" command.
I dont see busybox in my app drawer

cam75 said:
thx for the quick response, however much of that is WAY over my head. I opened terminal emulator and typed su and this is what popped up. 1 [email protected]droid:/ $
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If the SuperSU app (and companion binary) were working correctly, you should have seen one of those "Accept / Deny" pop-up messages coming from the SuperSU app... assuming that you didn't previously grant root access to that terminal emulator app. You didn't mention that happening.... ?
Also, usually the command prompt usually changes from $ to # when you have root, but not always; the explicit way to check would be to (after you have tried the "su" command) to type in "id" and hit return at the prompt - that will tell you explicitly if you are root or not. (That's the letter "i" followed by the letter "d" followed by the return key).
From the way you describe this, it is sounding like you lost root.
I gotta go watch part of the game. In the meantime, perhaps you should at least create a backup manually.
As I said, the simplest fix-up would be to get Superuser.apk/su or SuperSU/su re-installed into /system/app and /system/{x}bin/su (it seems that chainsDD and chainfire use different locations).
There might be floating around someplace a flashable zip file with this stuff in it - to be used for "lightly rooting" a stock ROM after a custom recovery is in place. But things have been in flux recently with both the SuperSU (chainfire) and Superuser (chainsDD) kits because of the JellyBean multi-user support, so the version you might need is important. So you would have to do the research to figure out where.
gotta go - good luck.

bftb0 said:
If the SuperSU app (and companion binary) were working correctly, you should have seen one of those "Accept / Deny" pop-up messages coming from the SuperSU app... assuming that you didn't previously grant root access to that terminal emulator app. You didn't mention that happening.... ?
Also, usually the command prompt usually changes from $ to # when you have root, but not always; the explicit way to check would be to (after you have tried the "su" command) to type in "id" and hit return at the prompt - that will tell you explicitly if you are root or not. (That's the letter "i" followed by the letter "d" followed by the return key).
From the way you describe this, it is sounding like you lost root.
I gotta go watch part of the game. In the meantime, perhaps you should at least create a backup manually.
As I said, the simplest fix-up would be to get Superuser.apk/su or SuperSU/su re-installed into /system/app and /system/{x}bin/su (it seems that chainsDD and chainfire use different locations).
There might be floating around someplace a flashable zip file with this stuff in it - to be used for "lightly rooting" a stock ROM after a custom recovery is in place. But things have been in flux recently with both the SuperSU (chainfire) and Superuser (chainsDD) kits because of the JellyBean multi-user support, so the version you might need is important. So you would have to do the research to figure out where.
gotta go - good luck.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thanks again.
Im watching Superbowl as well. I didnt grant Terminal access. I rebooted into recovery and restored to right after I rooted. SuperSu auto updated through the play store, and stated the binary need updated. I canceled that. TB and ROM manager are showing up in SuperSu. So now Im rebooting into recovery again to after I installed the Smooth Rom/Motley Kernal. I did make a backup of where SuperSu lost root. I now have three backups.
Question on installing the SuperSu apk file. I want to be sure I do it right, if needed. Download the file on my 7. it will go to my download folder. Move it to the system folder and open/run it? what do i do with the current SuperSu folder?
thanks again

I went to my restore point after root and reinstalled 4.3 Smooth ROM Mkernel. I did not take the SuperSu update, (ill wait for the next update) and everything is fine TB an ROM manager working fine, did a backup in both.
Thanks for your help on this.

cam75 said:
Question on installing the SuperSu apk file. I want to be sure I do it right, if needed. Download the file on my 7. it will go to my download folder. Move it to the system folder and open/run it? what do i do with the current SuperSu folder?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Dealing with .apk's is not that difficult - drop them into the correct place and reboot.
In Android, apps (.apk files) are stored in one of two places: /system/app or /data/app. It is even possible for two versions of an app to be on the phone - one in /system/app and one in /data/app; that is how upgrades of factory-installed apps happen: the pre-installed app is in /system/app... and never gets deleted (read-only filesystem), whereas update versions get dropped into /data/app. Generally you can just drop an .apk file into either of these locations, wipe the dalvik cache and reboot. During the android boot, these files are compiled into .dex objects in the dalvik-cache, and various version, consistency, rights and permissions are cross-checked.
Think of it this way: when you boot a new ROM for the first time, /data starts out completely empty. Everything needed to support each pre-installed app in /system/app gets created automatically during the android layer start-up.
The "su" native binary is a bit more complicated - it needs to be:
- owned by the user.group root.root
- be executable
- be setuid/setgid
Imagine that you had a copy of these two files on your "/sdcard". If you booted into the custom recovery, you could affect these changes like this:
C:\foo> adb shell
# mount # show what is already mounted
# mount /sdcard # if needed
# mount /system # if needed
# mv /system/app/SuperSU.apk /system/app/SuperSU.apk.old
# cp /sdcard/SuperSU.apk /system/app/SuperSU.apk
# mv /system/xbin/su /system/xbin/su.old
# cp /sdcard/su /system/xbin/su
# chown root.root /system/xbin/su
# chmod 6755 /system/xbin/su
# cd /
# umount /system
# exit
C:\foo>
*
As a practical matter, it is probably easier to just make sure to make a fresh backup if you are about to update the su binary - in case anything goes wrong. It might also be useful to use a root-aware file manager to remount the /system partition in rw mode prior to doing the "update su binary" procedure in the SuperSU app.
Good luck
* note that SuperSU and Superuser apps choose different locations for the su executable file - one uses /system/bin/su and the other /system/xbin/su. There might also be a symlink between these locations. Best policy is probably to examine a known-working installation to determine how to proceed.

Change /System permissions

Quick question.
I'm trying to drop a couple files needed for Tasker in /system (/framework and /etc specifically) using ES File explorer. Unfortunately ES fails to grant write access (rooted obviously). Is there any easier way about this? I could download an android terminal emulator, but I'll be honest, I'm not terminal savvy. Chmod 777? Default is 755? ADB is possible, but really not preferred as my ouya is in the living room, and my desktop is not...(also, I'm not familiar with adb )
Thanks.

Never mind, I was mixing permissions and mounting. I found the option to remount /system as rw and that did the trick.

Stock ROM /system and /app R/W permissions?

Hey guys,
I have a Moto G5+ XT1687 that I'm messing with. I've rooted this sucker, TWRW recovery & Magisk are installed on the stock ROM and the phone does appear to have root as I'm able to log into the shell with root permissions, but I still cannot get the /system and /app folders to remount as r/w regardless of what I try.
So far I've had the same issues with Root Explorer, FX File Manager, Shell commands via ADB and terminal emulators. I'm still somewhat new to working with these, so hopefully there's a quick fix for it. Any assistance would be much appreciated!